yardkat

Hi, this is my first attempt at night time photography. I really wanted to try to get the Milky Way, but it was too cloudy. Nonetheless, it was a great learning experience to get out and shoot in the dark, and I learned a lot. I know this photo isn't the best, and doesn't represent any sort of end product, but if you've done some night photography, please let me know if the technical details are working here. Is it in focus, acceptable exposure, etc. I did a little light painting of the foreground. Very minimal post processing, all done in Lightroom. Thank you for your advice!

Hi Stephen,

Thank you for your observations.  I definitely agree that the scope is limited, I find that if I go too wide out there it flattens everything out too much. But perhaps next time I can try for some sort of panorama.    I was sort of trying to achieve an abstract view, in a sense, to make it about the contours more than the landscape itself, which is also why I went with B&W.  But I essentially feel as you do, it's not particularly eye-catching.

Thanks again for your comments!
Julie

Thanks in advance for your thoughts. I'm trying to get this image to

work and am somehow getting stuck with it...I don't know if the BW

conversion is working quite right, don't know if the contrast is quite

right, one minute I feel it's too flat then too contrasty. It looks

better full size, when it compresses the toning shifts color a bit and

I'm not quite sure how to fix that.

Anyway, thanks for any advice and help!

Thank you for your suggestions! I am always looking for ways to improve.

Thank you for the kind words!

Thank you for your suggestions!

Thank you for your suggestions!

I love this, the color is rich and full, I love how the out of focus circles in the upper left balance the in focus droplets on the bottom right.  You might crop a *tiny* bit out of the top and bottom, but I wouldn't crop the circles, they add balance. I really love the very thin slice of focus, it's perfectly placed!
Congratulations, great job!

Very nice job! Great image!

Nice! The separation between foreground/background, in-focus/out-of-focus is wonderful, and the color is very eye-catching without being overcooked. Very well done!

Thank you for your thoughts!

Thank you for your kind remarks! (I'm really loving my new camera!)

Got a new camera yesterday, this is my first shot with it. Please let

me know your thoughts! Thank you!

Very painterly.  I like the tones and the quality of the lack of depth of field. Nice work!

Thanks for your kind comments!
J

This is part of an assignment for a Lightroom class I am taking. It's

the first photo I've ever processed using just Lightroom. Please

share your thoughts.

Thank you!

Thank you!

 

First of all I would like to say that you have a lovely daughter, and I hope she does well in her modeling competition!

I will second what John Gaylon posted regarding the pose.  It feels awkward in that her leg is so present and weighs the image down in the lower half of the frame. It keeps  the viewer's eye low, making her face seem less important. And probably for modeling her face is most important!

If you had shot this same pose but with the camera above her face looking down at her, the pose might not be quite as troublesome as it is here. Shooting from below gives the impression that the subject is larger; for instance if she were standing it could make her look taller and more imposing. But here it serves to weigh the image down.

This next part doesn't matter as much with the young subjects, because they don't yet have to worry about saggy jawlines,  but if If I'm being photographed and I know that I'm looking down at the photographer, I'm going to move heaven and earth to get out of that position, it adds gravity to my face and makes me look as if my face is fatter and adds more chin(s) than I wish to appear having.  It also makes the eyes a little bit squinty as well. (It was a common position my wedding photographer used, and in most of the shots I've got a double chin! So I've learned that it's a camera angle that isn't usually flattering! ;) In this image you have a little bit of the squint happening, partly because it appears to be very bright out, but also because she's looking so far down at the camera. Placing your camera around eye level and having the subject look slightly upwards with their eyes makes their eyes look really open and is usually a very flattering look. 

If it were I who was trying to get a good photo of her to present to a competition or agency or what have you, I might experiment first with getting some good head and shoulder type shots, really getting a good expression and focusing on the eyes, getting the most out of the eyes that you can. It's all about the eyes.

I really love the mood and tone of this image.  I like the misty quality of the light, and the vignetting works well, I think.  It might be nice if the tree and the tips of the grass were a tad sharper or had a bit more contrast, but just a tad, just enough to take the eye there and let it linger, but not enough to overpower the softness of the image.

Lately I've been really using frames a lot, but I sort of feel like this image might be better without the white key line and black frame. The tone of the photo is so dark and warm that the blackness makes it seem perhaps a touch heavy.  The vignetting serves as a sort of frame anyway, so it's like putting three layers of frosting on a cake, delicious of course, but maybe a touch overpowering.

 

In any case, it's a great photo, beautiful work! It's an image that I wish I'd shot.

Thank you so much for your comments. This is in the to-be-printed queue, so I will look carefully at the grass tones when I do print.  The grasses may be a little bit hot, but I definitely want to keep some difference in tones between the land and the sky. But you've given me ideas... Thank you again for your help!
Julie

 

Does this work better?

Is it the bottom right corner in particular that's bothering you?

Thank you for your time!

Thank you for looking and giving comments!

Thank you for looking!